Calibration

Do you find it odd that when something is true we can assign meaning, analyze, and then evaluate it, but when that same thing is even just a little bit off, it’s not even slightly useful for the same tasks? I do.

How useful is a calculator that’s off by “just a little” when doing your taxes? It’s all-the-way useless.

It’s like the whole set-your-clock-five-minutes-fast trick. The most useful clock is the most accurate one. If the time on a watch is extremely accurate, it’s extremely useful. Conversely, setting your clock five minutes fast in order to increase productivity or “guarantee I’m on time” usually results in two things. First, the clock’s owner knows the time is inaccurate and, second, the clock’s owner often has to do more work calculating how much time they really have to get to work.

I’ll be the first to tell you that class at Reviver isn’t the seventh game of the World Series (although sometimes when Vince says “HI!!!!!!!” when you walk through the door, it does feel pretty special…….. thanks Vince!) but since we are here and working hard, we might as well get some accurate information about our work. If you choose, you can then assign meaning to, analyze, and evaluate this info. It’d be tough to improve on an effort that can’t be accurately measured, right? So, in order to have something to measure against, we assign specific range of motion standards, rep schemes, and loads. Except, once you cut a rep short, (say not squatting to depth or missing the lockout on a push up) the statement of what occurred in that day’s training isn’t true anymore. Not only is it not true, it’s not even measurable anymore.

When the integrity of the information is lost (even just a little), we lose everything. What does it mean when you run a 400m run in one minute and fifteen seconds, but only go to the corner (rather than the full distance)? Who knows, should we measure that distance? Should we take a mental note that you have a hell of a 389.63m run time in you? It doesn’t seem worth it to run all that way for zero information in return.

Movement integrity is an all or nothing game. When your chin doesn’t get over the bar, well, I don’t even know what to call that…. A pull u? A pu up?? My message here is to calibrate your watches with movement integrity. Even if it’s for nothing more than selfishly getting some useful information out of your effort that both you and the coaches are able to use in the future.